"it's always terrible news, but at least it's not a surprise anymore. it would hurt more if it was a surprise."

That's a pretty low bar.
Could you imagine listening to a battered wife who is all:
"it's always terrible with my husband, but at least it's not a surprise anymore. it would hurt more if it was a surprise."
And then doing a bunch of mental gymnastics to try to find a way to do anything but place the blame on the husband and get the wife away from the husband or get the husband out of the picture?
"That ex-bf she almost married, he would have been just as bad."
"The ex-bf -- who wasn't perfect but wasn't this physically abusive -- well, I blame the ppl who were pushing the lady to marry him. They should have been pushing her to marry this other third guy we know. Then she wouldn't have married this abusive husband."
"You can choose who you marry...but it's not that important who you actually stand at the alter with. Sure, you take on their debt, that person and their relatives will be making decisions that heavily affect your life and it's a lot harder to actually part ways with them after you've married them....but the courting process, that's where the real groundwork is!"
I would hope you'd have responded to that youth with, "Hey, keep your head up. We can get out from under this administration. Here's how you keep fighting..."